Decision makers

Ask Your Congressmen to Support Missing Persons

Last year the Silver Alert Act, including Kristen's Act Reauthorization passed the in the House of Representatives by unanimous voice vote. Unfortunately, the bill stalled in the US Senate and died there at the end of the year. Senator Kohl has promised to reintroduce the bill in the US Senate this year and Representative Doggett has promised to reintroduce the bill in the House of Representatives.

This bill establishes a nationwide silver alert network for endangered missing adults and reauthorizes Kristen's Act which authorizes funding in the amount of four million dollars per year for a national missing adults program. Kristen's Act has historically been the primary funding source for Let's Bring Them Home's missing adults program - formerly known as The National Center for Missing Adults.

Imagine your daughter went missing. Where would you turn? This depends on an arbitrary date. At age 17 and 364 days, the resources you have are tremendous. However, one day later, your child is an adult and America is not set up to look for 18 year old victims. The same is true for the elderly, a person with dementia will likely die of exposure before a missing persons case is opened because they too are an adult and the laws have not considered them.

I urge you to take action by cosponsoring the National Silver Alert Act to provide funding for non-profits to provide a national clearinghouse for adults that provides emotional support and other assistance such as the coordination of volunteer searches, crisis centers, law enforcement training, prevention and personal safety information and public awareness. These important initiatives will also provide funding to establish a national alert system for seniors and funding to labs throughout the country to conduct DNA analysis.

Kristen's Act first passed in the 106th congress and can be referenced as H.R.2780 in the 106th congress and/or Public Law No: 106-468 and created the National Center for Missing Adults (www.lbth.org) as the first clearinghouse for missing adults. The National Silver Alert Act includes the re-authorization of Kristen's Act, which has since expired leaving families of missing adults without hope. The reauthorization bill passed the house last year, but died in the senate. It will be reintroduced in both the house and the senate early this year. When it is, please cosponsor The National Silver Alert Act.

I support Let's Bring Them Home and their missing adults program, formerly known as The National Center for Missing Adults. They have been the historical recipients of Kristen's Act grant money and have shown their ability to do great good with it. LBTH has provided law enforcement training and support to the families of missing persons in addition to maintaining a national database and clearinghouse for missing adults. The lapse of grant money between the end of Kristen's Act funding and the yet to be passed Kristen's Act Reauthorization has crippled LBTH and has been a detriment to missing persons, their families and the law enforcement agencies looking for them.